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I’ve just finished updating my “Jobsearch Diary”, so I thought I’d take a few minutes to post a few thoughts about the process, and some thoughts on the role of external New Deal Providers, when it comes to effective jobsearching… Continue reading →

I had my first appoinment with an “Employment Coach” today. For those wondering, A4e caterogise their staff as folllows:

Personal Career Coach (Who I’ve been dealing with up until now)

Trainers (Who provide in-house training – more on this later)

Employment Coach (From the “Promotional book” – “…Your Employment Coach will help you to obtain both work placements and long-term employment. In short, they’ll create employment opportunities for you…”)

In-Work Mentor (Offer support while you’re in work).

So how did I get to this stage? I guess I’d better catch up on what’s been happening the last few months while I haven’t been super-active in keeping this blog updated.

A few weeks ago I mentioned the change to Online Jobsearch, and how customers are now expected to use Direct.Gov, which in my opinion is inferior to the existing system (and that’s saying something). Luckily, there’s a workaround you can use to access the original system, however it doesn’t look like it’ll work for much longer. Having just accessed the site to perform my jobsearch activities, I spotted the following message:

This site is closing on 31 March 2010. All jobs found on this site are available on the DirectGov website. Find a job now using the jobs and skills search

Please save ‘jobs and skills’ as one of your favourite internet pages. The site will also allow you to search for training, careers or voluntary work.

So it looks like Jobseekers are going to have to either make-do with the inferior option over on Direct.Gov, or failing that, either use the terminals within the Jobcentres, or phone JobSeeker Direct (and incur the related costs).

Just a quick post – basically I’m due to “sign-on” today, down at my local jobcentre. Now I’m not sure how it works in other JobCentres, but I know if I phone my local centre, to see if theyr’e open, they’ll insist that I come down – even if they’re not actually signing people on.

It happened a few years ago – I phoned the Jobcentre, was told to come down, the buses weren’t running, so I walked the two miles to the jobcentre, only to find that while it was open, they weren’t signing people on – everyone due to sign-on that day, had been automatically processed.

It made me smile, because although the staff are excused from turning up, us “dole scum” aren’t afforded such luxury.

The other irony, of course is the Government issued Travel Advice – Only travel if it’s absolutely essential. From my pov a trip down to the Jobcentre isn’t all that essential, however, getting my JSA next week most certainly is.

I’m due to sign-on on Thursday, so I’m just updating my jobsearch “diary” for the jobsearch that I’ve done since I last visited my local JCP. Which means, using the JobCentre Plus website, to search for new vacancies.

Now, while the “original” system wasn’t perfect, it was at least useable. The new version, located over at DirectGov, is quite honestly, appalling. It’s completely unintuitive, and makes searching for vancancies a lot, lot more difficult, and time consuming, than the old system.

If I were a cynical person, I’d say they’ve removed the “original” jobsearch website, not in order to streamline everything under the DirectGov banner, but to draw more traffic to JobSeekers Direct, in order to generate additional revenue.

Update -> The “original” version is still online, for the moment – though for how long, I’m not sure. It isn’t linked from the JobCentrePlus website, but if you type in the old address, it’ll work.